History Main / DamageTyping

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' has damage types linked to unit size. Normal damage is only reduced by armor values. Explosive deals full damage to Large units, and Concussive deals full damage to Small units. [[VideoGame/StarCraft2 The sequel]] has a Keyword system that causes Light, Biological, Mechanical, Psionic, or Massive units to take extra damage from certain attacks/abilities.

* ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'' applies damage types to all damage dealt, whether as mundane as projectile or melee damage or as exotic as radiant and infernal. In approximately 75% of cases, the outcome of combat is the same regardless of damage type, but some cards can increase, decrease, or completely prevent certain types of damage. For instance, [[TheCape Legacy]] can use the power printed on [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands Next Evolution]] to [[NoSell briefly become immune to one damage type of the player's choice]], while [[BadassNormal The Wraith]]'s [[SuperWristGadget Targeting Computer]] increases the Projectile damage she deals, but not her melee damage.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}} has three physical types (Impact, Puncture and Slash) with four elemental types (Heat, Toxin, Cold and Electric). By combining two element types, you can create secondary elements. At the same time, each enemy faction has varying resistances and weaknesses to the damage types, and thus modifying your loadout accordingly to face each faction will go a long way.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In addition to normal damage, there's "subdual" in [=AD&D=], or "non-lethal" from 3rd Edition. Taking nonlethal damage greater to your current HitPoints would knock you unconscious. (Taking nonlethal damage EQUAL to your hit points leaves you staggered (read: punch-drunk).) In older versions, 1/4 of punching damage is normal; later editions simplified this. Many jokes about how you can punch someone all day without killing them have resulted. (You can also choose to deal lethal damage with a punch, but unless you're a monk or mystic, it's at a penalty; the penalty is irrelevant to an incapacitated target.)
** In Basic ''D&D'', subdual damage was only allowed to be used on dragons at first. The dragon thus defeated became indebted to the PC, which might result in getting a handy new pet/mount/NPC.

** In 5th Edition, rather than having ContractualBossImmunity, boss-appropriate monsters have Legendary Resistance: The first three failed saving throws, usually StandardStatusEffects, are ignored. The fourth, however, takes full effect and is usually debilitating enough to remind you why ContractualBossImmunity exists. So, effectively, all bosses have 4 HitPoints that can only be removed by one status each.

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[[AC:Tabletop Games]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

* Used in different ways throughout the ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' series. ''VideoGame/Persona3'' has seven elements (fire, ice, electricity, wind, light, darkness, and [[NonElemental almighty]] and three different types of physical attacks: slashing, piercing, and striking. ''VideoGame/Persona4'' retains the elements from ''3'', but foregoes categorizing non-magic attacks and rolls them into one type: physical. ''VideoGame/Persona5'' adds two new elements (psychic and nuclear) while dividing physical attacks into two types: melee and shooting.

* In Gen 3 and later ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' games, in addition to the ElementalRockPaperScissors, attacks also have a property called "contact". Attacks that make contact entail a Pokémon making direct physical contact with their opponent, while attacks that do not make contact entail a Pokémon attacking from range without physically touching them. As a rule of thumb, physical moves make contact, while special moves do not. Some moves and abilities are dependent on a Pokémon making contact: Spiky Shield inflicts damage on an opposing Pokémon if their attack makes contact, for instance, while Poison Touch has a chance of inflicting poison if the Pokémon with this ability lands an attack that makes contact.

* Creator/PalladiumBooks games (such as ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'') have Structural Damage Capacity and Mega-Damage Capacity. One hundred points of SDC is one point of Mega-Damage. Getting hit outside of armor by an MD weapon usually invokes the ChunkySalsaRule.

* The games using the Megaversal system from Creator/PalladiumBooks (including ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'', ''TabletopGame/HeroesUnlimited'', ''TabletopGame/AfterTheBomb'', ''TabletopGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'', and others) have separate scores for H.P. (HitPoints) and S.D.C., Structural Damage Capacity. Loss of S.D.C. represents superficial injuries, such as bruising, muscle strain, and being bashed around, while loss of H.P. is seriously life-threatening.

* In addition to its more famous ElementalRockPaperScissors, ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' also has two different classes of damage-dealing attacks, Physical and Special. Physical attacks use the regular Attack and Defense stats to calculate damage, whereas special attacks use Special Attack and Special Defense. This mechanic has undergone quite a few changes between the various generations in order to balance out the gameplay:
** In the first three generations, this was intrinsically tied to the ElementalRockPaperScissors system, where the elemental type of move determined whether it dealt physical or special damage.[[labelnote:*]]For example, Water-typed attacks were ''always'' Special, Fighting-typed attacks were ''always'' physical, etc.[[/labelnote]] In the fourth gen games, this was split on an individual case-by-case basis so now a move can be either physical or special regardless of typing.
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', Special attack power and defensive ability both were determined by ''one'' "Special" stat, so pokemon with a very high number in that area were [[GameBreaker game-breaking powerhouses]] since they could soak up and dish out Spec. damage equally well. This is one of the main reasons why Psychic pokemon (specifically, [[OlympusMons Mewtwo]] and GlassCannon Alakazam) were so ridiculously overpowered in RBY, and the split into two separate stats helped to even the playing field quite a bit.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' has several types of damage: Normal (usually for melee units), Piercing (usually for ranged attacks), Siege (SiegeEngines and anti-building units), Magic (projectile spells, though not all explicitly magical projectiles use the Magic damage type), Hero (hero units, both melee and ranged), and Chaos (full damage to all armor types, reserved for very high-end enemies and demons). Adjusting them all for CompetitiveBalance causes some very strange things to happen (such as light armor reducing damage from Siege and the Unarmored armor type reducing some damage types, some buildings not having Fortified armor...). MagicImmune units can't even be targeted by Magic damage, while ethereal units can only be hits by spells and Magic damage.

** When players take damage, they lose life. Damage to players can be prevented or redirected just like damage to creatures. On the other hand, some effects cause players to lose life directly, bypassing the damage mechanic entirely; these effects aren't subject to damage prevention or redirection.

* Bruises. This tends to be relatively insignificant damage that heals quickly, like getting punched in the arm by someone with human strength. Taking too much, however, will usually slow you down some way.
* Vital injury. This is the important damage, the stuff that you have to watch for. Getting cut, shot, or hit by something with SuperStrength tend to deal this sort.

In general, if there's healing magic or other HealingFactor options, all three types will heal about the same way (though supernatural damage is usually trickier.)

Note that this is more involved that merely having different kinds of defenses for different kinds of damage. A lot of games assign damage to one of several elemental types (physical, fire, frost, etc.), and then apply different defenses against each (physical armor, fire resistance, frost resistance, etc.) -- but once your defenses are subtracted from the damage, your hit points are reduced in a completely identical manner regardless of "damage type." This trope goes beyond this; to qualify for this trope, the injuries themselves must be qualitatively different.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In addition to normal damage there's "subdual" in [=AD&D=], or "non-lethal" from 3rd Edition. Taking nonlethal damage equal to your current HitPoints would knock you unconscious. In older version 1/4 of punching damage is normal, later one simplified this. Many jokes about how you can punch someone all day without killing them have resulted. (You can also choose to deal lethal damage with a punch, but unless you're a monk or mystic, it's at a penalty; the penalty is irrelevant to an incapacitated target.)

*** ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' [[ObviousRulePatch fixes this]] by ruling that after a character's non-lethal damage equals their maximum hit points any further damage is automatically lethal damage.

* Palladium games (such as ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'') have Structural Damage Capacity and Mega-Damage Capacity. One hundred points of SDC is one point of Mega-Damage. Getting hit outside of armor by an MD weapon usually invokes the ChunkySalsaRule.

** Early on in the game's history, there were creatures and effects that gave opponents Poison counters. Get ten Poison counters, and you lose. The mechanic was more or less pointless unless you built your entire deck around shooting for this win condition, and such decks tended to be suboptimal compared to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim doing damage the old-fashioned way]]. Poison counters were quietly dropped in later editions.

* PlayedWith in ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination''. Damage itself is just damage, regardless what caused it. But during hit rolls, there are two main groups of defences with three subgroups in each: physical (hand-to-hand, weapons and projectiles) and magical (witchers' signs, magic and prayers).

** ''D20Modern'' modifies the rules for nonlethal damage; essentially, unarmed combatants can duke it out all day without inflicting a single point of damage. It's not until someone brings in a weapon of some sort that damage is actually recorded. The rules justify it as characters that are involved in fighting can continue fighting on heroic willpower and adrenaline as long as you're only talking about fists and feet. It's not until a weapon is used that the intent to seriously injure or kill becomes available. Basically, you have to up the ante from a fistfight to end it.

** Hero also has separate damage types, as well, in Normal and Killing. Normal damage tends to do plenty of Stun but only average Body, and Killing Damage does lots of Body and either very little or quite a bit of Stun. Killing damage also bypasses normal defenses, unless those defenses have been made "resistant" to killing damage; this represents the idea that a prizefighter can be tough enough to take many hard punches, but is just as vulnerable as everybody else to a knife or a bullet. However, once the Stun and Body from either of these types of damage are subtracted from the target's Stun pips and Body pips, the resulting injuries are treated identically.

* ''VideoGame/GuildOfDungeoneering'' has physical, magical, self-inflicted, and untyped damage. "Frail" enemies take extra physical injury, and "Mundane"enemies take extra magic damage. Untyped damage is very rare, and nothing is vulnerable to it, but it always hits. Self-Inflicted is likewise without vulnerable enemies and always hits; it is the NescessaryDrawback for the powerful physical attacks of the "Irritable" family.

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* In ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' (1e/2e), a system without HP, where damage is dealt by rolling to have their natural toughness, or armor or forcefeild of some sort save them from damage, there were two different charts for damage Lethal and Nonlethal, giving a penalty to the roll for each failed throw, untill they fail by enough, where more serious penalties are inflicted. Depending on the edition, 1e had entirely different types of damage decided on when the power was taken, and certain damage was forced to be lethal or not. in 2e any power could do any damage (Though a smart DM would question the Player on how they intend to merely incapacitate the foe with a 1000 degree Nova Blast), but either way, Nonlethal damage could only apply penalty to nonlethal damage saving throws, and could, at max, knock out the foe, where Lethal damage would deal a penalty to both nonlethal and lethal saving throws, and could make the foe [[MostlyDead dying]].
** 3e dropped this, so getting shot through the chest is the same as being punched by Batman. In fact Maxed out power-attacking Batman can hit harder than any weapon, apart from a direct shot from a rocket launcher, and there's no distinction in damage.